2007 OPS battle: A-Rod vs. Ortiz

Besides OPS, two stats similar to OPS that I have looked at are BAWRIP and IsoOPS. Like I have said in past posts, BAWRIP is batting average plus walk rate plus isolated power and IsoOPS is OPS minus batting average (what OPS would look like if batting average counted once in OPS instead of twice). BAWRIP is very similar to IsoOPS. They are both like OPS and they both count batting average only once. I wasn't sure if there was any big differences between the two so I decided to try to find out.

I decided to look at the 2007 AL OPS leaders and apply some of my stats to them. Why 2007? I have the 2008 Bill James Handbook that uses stats from the 2007 season. The book had the OPS leaders written out so I used that for my research.

I found out that Alex Rodriguez finished first in the AL in OPS edging out David Ortiz but just one point (1.067 to 1.066). Ortiz had a higher BA by 18 points therefore Ortiz had a lower IsoOPS too. Remember IsoOPS is OPS minus BA so the player with the higher BA often has the lower IsoOPS when they both have a similar OPS. So the next thing I did was take the AL OPS top ten and re-rank them with my other OPS-like stats. The first surprise was that Carlos Pena despite finishing third in OPS, finished 1st in BAWRIP. The reason? First of all, he had the second highest walk rate and had the highest IsoP among the ten players. His BA was only .282 which is why his OPS was not high enough to beat A-Rod and Ortiz. Ortiz gained 100 points over Pena with his BA because his BA counted twice was .664 and Pena's was .564. Have BA count only once, and Pena beats Ortiz by 19 points.

But there was something even more interesting. Ortiz beat A-Rod in BAWRIP! At first, I figured I must have made a mistake. Ortiz couldn't even beat A-Rod in IsoOPS so how can he beat him in BAWRIP? I looked at A-Rod's stats again and I found the reason. A-Rod had 21 hit by pitches (HBP) in 2007 which increased his IsoD (OBP minus BA) because OBP includes HBPs. Ortiz had 4 HBPs. So it turns out that A-Rod won the OPS title just because he got hit by more pitches than Ortiz did. Imagine that!

So my conclusion is that BAWRIP is definitely different than IsoOPS because HBPs actually can make a difference! I'm not sure if a player's HBP total should be used to evaluate their talent. It is still getting on-base and you don't really care HOW you get on-base but the problem I have with it is that the pitcher pretty much has complete control over whether a batter gets hit by a pitch or not. Giving a batter credit for being hit by a pitch is like giving a baserunner a stolen base even though the catcher threw the ball into center fielder or giving a batter a hit even though the shortstop mishandled the ball. The baserunner would like to think he forced the catcher to make a bad throw and the batter would like to think he has the ability to make the ball spin out of a fielder's glove but really they accomplished something thanks to someone else's mistake. A batter doesn't really earn a hit by pitch....he just was fortunate the pitcher threw it in his direction.

However, some batters DO get hit by pitches more than other batters and it's more than coincidence. The reason could be that they stand close to plate, don't make an effort to dodge the baseball, or a combination of both. However, the pitcher still needs to make a bad pitch to hit a batter. I'd like to compare hit by pitches to taking a charge in basketball. In basketball, taking a charge means getting fouled by the offensive player. Usually the offensive player knocks the defensive player down with his body and the defensive player gets credit for taking a charge. You can sort of consider it to be a skill because the defensive player has to stand in one place prior to receiving contact to show that the defensive player was just standing there when he was knocked to the ground. Some players move their feet before contact and no offensive foul is called. However, it still depends on the offensive player. If he doesn't touch the defender, usually a foul isn't called. It's the same with the batter and the pitcher. The batter can stand close to home plate and also not make an effort to avoid the ball but if the pitcher throws a good pitch, the batter can't get hit by the pitch. He doesn't have complete control over whether or not he gets hit and the basketball player doesn't have complete control over whether or not he gets fouled. They can certainly give them an invitation to hit them but they can't force the opposing player to commit the violation whether it is a hit by pitch or an offensive foul.

In conclusion, I think I'll focus more on BAWRIP and less on IsoOPS because I don't want A-Rod beating Ortiz just because he got hit by more pitches. OPS is considered an ultimate stat in which Player A can be automatically considered a better offensive player than Player B if Player A has the higher OPS but I don't think A-Rod was a better offensive player than Ortiz in 2007 just because A-Rod had the higher OPS.

New stat: Fan Save Value

Adding to my list of hidden stats is a real stat called Fan Save Value. It is a stat created by Ari Kaplan and I discovered it while reading the book Baseball Hacks by Joseph Adler. A post on fangraphs.com did a good job explaining it:

"FSV measures the difficulty level of each save by taking into account the lead with which the closer enters as well as the number of outs he must record to secure a win for his team. When all of the results are added together we are left with a number similar to the saves total but more indicative of how hard a closer had to work. The formula for FSV is (X/Y)/2, where X=the amount of outs to record and Y=the lead of his team. For instance, recording a one-inning save with a two-run lead would result in an FSV of 0.75; 3 outs divided by 2 runs ahead, then divided by 2."

How is it used? If Carlos Marmol has 12 saves with a FSV of 12.5, it means that his saves were harder than it seems. If Marmol has 12 saves with a FSV of 11.2, it means that his saves were easier than it seems. I'm still trying to understand it too but that's a rough idea of how the stat is translated. It's a very interesting stat and it is "hidden" stat (the writer of the Fan Graphs post called it a stat that is "not mentioned too much"). I needed some good stats for pitchers especially closers so I'll definitely keep track of this stat for all Cubs pitchers who record a save in 2009.

2008 Chicago Cubs OPS Leaders

Here are the 2008 OPS Cubs top 10 including ALL players:

OPS Leaders
1 Jim Edmonds 0.937
2 M. Hoffpauir 0.934
3 Mike Fontenot 0.909
4 A. Ramirez 0.898
5 C. Zambrano 0.892
6 A. Soriano 0.876
7 Geovany Soto 0.868
8 Mark DeRosa 0.857
9 Derrek Lee 0.823
10 Reed Johnson 0.778

2008 Chicago Cubs IsoDPP Leaders

2008 Cubs IsoDPP (isolated discipline plus power) leaders among players with at least 100 ABs:

NAME IsoDPP
Jim Edmonds 0.425
A. Ramirez 0.320
A. Soriano 0.316
Mike Fontenot 0.299
Geovany Soto 0.298
Daryle Ward 0.289
Mark DeRosa 0.287
Derrek Lee 0.241
K. Fukudome 0.224
Reed Johnson 0.172
Ronny Cedeno 0.142
Henry Blanco 0.133
Ryan Theriot 0.132

2008 Chicago Cubs IsoOPS Leaders

Here are 2008 Cubs leaders in IsoOPS (OPS minus BA) among players with at least 100 ABs:

NAME IsoOPS OPS
Jim Edmonds 0.681 0.937
A. Ramirez 0.609 0.898
Mike Fontenot 0.604 0.909
A. Soriano 0.596 0.876
Geovany Soto 0.583 0.868
Mark DeRosa 0.572 0.857
Derrek Lee 0.532 0.823
Daryle Ward 0.505 0.721
K. Fukudome 0.481 0.738
Reed Johnson 0.475 0.778
Ryan Theriot 0.438 0.745
Henry Blanco 0.425 0.717
Ronny Cedeno 0.411 0.680